The party assembles once again in the town of Gren where the group operates from. It functions as a hub of commerce and support networks for the area. Some in the group have reported some new rumors that are heard around town.

• Fandillas heard that the local teahouse is a surface level business run by a Thieves Guild. Apparently, this group controls local business to some extent and the guild is led by someone called “Sithisil Myrwin”. Their current goal is to try and pull in more business and money to the town.

• Another rumor heard by Vella Sloan is that the hills are filled with beasts and some strange folk, belonging to a race older than most beasts. They appear like a strange type of human and are said to dwell somewhere to the north east.

• Over a pint of Moonbreeze Ale, Lathar hears that the reason this ale is so good is because a local tavern keeper, Rudolph, made a pact with the ghosts found in some ruins across the lake.

This session included the following cast of characters:

- Ithimyr Sarfanis, Half-Elf Cleric / Ranger of Riswa.

- Vella Sloan, Human Cleric.

- Lathar, Human Ranger.

- Fandillas - Elf Fighter / Magic-User.

- Talon, Human Paladin of Riswa.

- Tsanu - Half-Elf Cleric / Magic-User and excellent listener (keen eared).

- Erebus - Human Paladin of Rook.

The weather is cloudy today.

Before we depart for the Chapel grounds once again, we decided to purchase some supplies and hire some help. Tsanu purchases a lantern and Erebus hires a teamster, a porter and a linkboy. Warhorses have gone down in price and can be purchased for “book price”.

After gathering our group, we head out and make it back to the Chapel grounds unhindered, the giant decaying spider corpse still on display as before. There are no new tracks this time and everything is quiet.

Erebus provides the usual 10' aura of Protection from Evil so the group stays close wherever they can. We share the map with the group and discuss where to go this time, deciding on some of the unexplored chambers to the north of the dungeon complex.

We enter dungeon through the entrance leading from the Chapterhouse and move steadily toward the portcullis room. This was where we slew some zombies and perhaps unsurprising, we find those same 3 dead zombies. The room seems like a prison of sorts with a big iron lever along one wall. We open the right hand door and torchlight shines into the long room which connects up with the portcullis room.

It is quite obvious and thus everyone notices several scrapes along the floor, going down into the darkness. Ithimyr sees that the scrapes lead in both directions, north and south, along the passage. There are very deep, faint traces and more scraping marks going along the walls as well. Whatever material that made these scrapes was definitely harder than bone and were made from a moving, heavy object. Whatever object was dragged was irregular in shape.

We head towards the back wall of this passage and find another room that heads down about 40'. None of us hear anything as we proceed. Before continuing forward that party falls back into the portcullis room with the 3 zombie corpses. Each of the zombies are wearing raggedy loincloths.

The far door is opened by our group revealing a large room. In the center are four bodies clad in black robes, skeletal hands and feet poking out from beneath. Erebus pokes one of the robed skeletons with his sword. It is a humanoid skeleton and any trace of meat or flesh is long gone. These look like the same robes that we found previously, with the same green threading. As the group is searching through the robes, we find a flap on one of the robes and find that it lands on the floor with some weight. When we examine the skeletal bodies, we look more closely at the neckbones revealing that there are light traces of cuts to the throat.

Otherwise, we find that some of their pockets contain gold and silver, at total of 11 gp and 29 sp. The heavy object inside of the robes flap was a potion vial with a reddish-brown liquid inside, looks full.

Ithimyr attempts to find a secret or concealed door in this room. He has a 3-in-6 chance but after 10 minutes, he did not find evidence of any such door despite his careful searching. However, what he did find was an area, about 1' above the floor on the wall, with a slightly lighter discoloration. It is about 2“ wide, 5” long and the discolored area contrasts sharply with the surrounding stone.

After some investigation, we find that the rectangle shape actually slides into the wall and lands on a mechanism. This causes a 5' section of wall to depress, grinding open to the left revealing a previously unnoticed door! Beyond is a 5' passageway that curves to the left and then leads to a longer passage.

Following down the secret passage, it ends in a tiny area with a small staircase on the right hand side, which goes both up and down. This small area appears to be a stairwell landing.

The stairwell goes upward at a pretty steep angle but otherwise, we do not see anything and no sign of a spent torch left behind. Tsanu investigates the dead end and finds another, similar discoloration on the wall: a rectangle about 1' above the ground. We move the stone the same way as before and the wall grinds open just as the first one did.

Beyond this opening, another 20' long room capped with doors. This appears to be a bed chamber. We have been here before: some of us recognize the big stone chest that is up against the wall with the drawers made of stone; the 3 sets of hooks, which are smaller than the ones used for the robes in the previous “cloak room”. They were spaced 3-4“ apart.

Back beyond the secret door, we find that the stairs lead upward until they reach a trapdoor. Ithimyr searches and finds some missing dust on the ground along with some carbon matter. Torchlight does not reach the bottom of the stairs but the stairs lead down steeply with many tight steps.

We head down until eventually the air gets cool and feel that there is a different air about us. The staircase finally ends in an area that looks like a cavern with loose rocks everywhere. There are also jagged rocks hanging from ceiling.

The cavern opens up to a 40' area and we continue along the passage. In this area we find some remains, a skeleton of a dog that is sprawled out and surrounded by dust. There is the head of another dog skull poking out from some rubble. These two skeletons look like they may have been guard dogs. Otherwise, the underground passage seems to have the typical amount of dust for such a place. There are three empty dog bowls.

Checking amongst the the dog skeletons it is apparent that they had seen battle at some point, based on the evidence of our search. Tsanu taps along the northern wall, looking for secrets, while the others check the east and west walls. Tsanu finds a lighter sound at a northern wall section of the cavern, revealing another set stone that opens just like the other two. Erebus slides the stone over and a portion of the wall slides away.

The cavern's secret door now opens up into a regular hallway with a dead end to the right and a stairway to the left. Just as before, this time Lathar checks the wall of the dead end for the same stone and finds yet another secret door and quickly opens it.

We find a room with a big stone door on one side and a wooden staircase that goes up about 10', turns and then goes up another 10'. It appears to open up into another area above this room.

We open the big stone door and it swings open.

Beyond, is a huge chamber. The light cannot reach all of the walls. We see two strange objects that look like huge wooden wheels, resembling a cart with metal reinforcements. They are 15' in diameter.

Standing in the darkness we come face to face with two Ogre Zombies and we are surprised! The two massive zombies move in and attack us but both of them miss Erebus, who is at the front.

Once we have recovered from the surprise round, someone attempts to throw a burning oil flask but it misses the ogre zombies. Ithimyr attempts to call upon Riswa to turn the undead abominations but his attempt fails. At the same time either Vella or Tsanu also make their turning attempt, which succeeds! Holy light fills the room, illuminating the chamber briefly and the edges of the wheels. The hulking ogre zombies recoil in fear and we let them run.

After the undead retreat, we recover a moment and then check out the giant “hamster wheels”. Holding at torch up high, we can tell that the huge wheels disappear into the stone ceiling but we do not see any direct connection or brace connected to the ceiling. The wheels are held up on their base by stone and wood which keep them from falling over. The bottom of each wheel is above the ground but we think we can see metal in the opening through the ceiling, but it is hard to make out.

Further inside the room, we come across two large wooden bins piled high with large stones or boulders, about a basketball size each. In the back of the room, a wide staircase descends downward into a passage beyond a large stone wall.

We see once again, the giant ogre zombies at this end of the room cowered in fear by the turning of the undead. Ithimyr casts Bless immediately as we gain the initiative. The group moves in to attack!

After his spell is cast, Ithimyr attacks with his spear and misses but other did hit. Overall, we did 11 damage to each of them with some burning oil and they become wreathed in flames! There is a disgusting smell from the burning zombie flesh and we cause large creature damage with each successful strike.

Soon, they fall to the wayside along with the fading oil fire. Following combat, we evaluate the surroundings and clean the zombie flesh off our blades and armor. We can see that there is more structure above our heads: a wooden platform going across the ceiling which is placed about 15' below the ceiling. There is also an opening with no door where the wooden platform meets the wall.

At this point, the party has been underground for 1.5 hours.

Heading down the stairs at the south end of the room, we check through some alcoves found on either side and find an empty smaller room. It appears to be inset with thick walls and many feet of stone.

We go back to the staircase and head upwards, to the catwalk presumbably. Erebus finds a stone landing and a regular door at the top of the stairs. Through the archway to our right we see another large skeleton snake with a human head, another Necrophidian! Erebus immediately attacks.

After a short combat where the party moved in and made their strikes, we destroy the monstrosity. We take an inventory of the room: There are two doors and many bones around, at least worth 5 skeleton snakes with what appears to be matching snake bones with human heads. There were vaguely coiled up where they lied. To prevent any future magics from causing them to rise, we turn the bones to splinters.

This activity causes us to make a lot of noise. There is a portcullis in this room and a nearby level. Erebus manages to unstick the lever and pulls it down. This causes mechanisms to begin grinding and there is an explosive noise that comes from right side…and then a mechanical grinding noise of wood begins. Erebus pulls down the other lever and we realize that the huge wheels are now turning.

Opening the right side door we find a stable yet creaky wooden catwalk, the same one we previously saw from the room below. The torchlight reveals the wheels rotating slowly and steadily. They rotate loudly with bumps and thumps and the group can see that the part where the wheels meet the ceiling that 6 or 7 feet inside appears to be an open room. Where the ceiling meets the wheel is tight and nearly flush to the wheels. The wheels blocks off any attempt to maneuver inside. The group can also see that the wheel is glimmering faintly with liquid in the light.

A locked door is seen leading to another room just opposite the catwalk and Erebus break open the locked door with a handaxe. The party finds themselves in a 20' wide room shrouded in blackness, but the torchlight soon shows 6 humanoid forms: Zombies!

The combat ensues and we manage to turn them, a total of 10 zombies are standing in this room. Not all of them are turned however and soon realizing the danger, the group attempts to retreat back while someone attempts to break through the floor with a mace. Unfortunately, Erebus takes some solid hits from the zombies, knocking him down! One of the blows appeared to be too much and Erebus dies outright, our first casualty!

Zombies start shambling forward toward the hole, confused while the rest of the group drops a rope down the newly created hole. We also notice that the catwalk goes across the room.

During the combat, a couple more people are dropped and are unconscious: Tsanu and Fandillas. We take their bodies along with Erebus's lifeless form and exit the dungeon to make for Gren.

Luckily, we make it back to town with their bodies and the meager treasure we found.

There was a total of 11 gp, 29 sp, plus a potion.

The potion has a rosy, earthy texture and after a taste, we believe it to be a Potion of Healing.

When any creature is brought to 0 hit points (optionally as low as –3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), that creature is unconscious.

Back in Gren, we hear that somewhere south east of town is a cave full of goblins and bugbears. Another adventure for another time perhaps.

We each earn 2 xp and gp, with a total of 105 xp (combat xp).